


Slipping

by enoughiamagod



Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Memories, after the Avengers, and thor feels bad, before thor 2, loki's in a cage, loki's mind is slipping, lots of loki feels here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoughiamagod/pseuds/enoughiamagod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's mind is slipping while he's in the cage.  Not really a work in progress, as it's pretty much a collection of one-shots, but I'll update from time to time, so.</p><p>Post-Avengers, pre-The Dark World</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cage

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own these characters.  
> Have a nice day.

_The cage is cool, just the way Loki likes it. Sometimes he’ll turn into his true form, his monster form, and draw pictures on the glass around him in frost. Sometimes he sits there, remembering. There is nothing else in his cell, nothing to touch or play with or distract him, and his mind begins to slip into the past more and more. Today is one such day (or is it night, with no way to tell Loki loses track of time. Has it been days? months? years? in here?) and Thor watches quietly as his brother sits, slumped, eyes closed._

_Loki's mind is slipping, you see, and his brain is filled with swirls of the past and it's terrifying but he can't fight it, doesn't want to fight it, and so he falls a little more and more each day._


	2. Pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is bored, and Thor wants pie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having Loki feels. So I wrote.

Loki Laufeyson is bored. He has been bored for, oh, approximately the last five hundred years or so,and he thinks that he will remain bored for another five hundred. There is nothing to do, no mortals to visit or scare or kiss, and so he sits at the edge of the world, staring into the blackness beyond. Thor drops next to him lightly. So graceful for such a large man, Loki thinks, smiling at his brother.  
“You sit and stare, brother. What do you see?”  
“Ah, Thor, I’m bored.”  
“Bored? You? You’re always cooking up trouble of some sort. How can you be bored, brother?” Loki punches his brother gently on the shoulder. “Come now, you know I jest. I’m here to beg a favor, Loki.”  
“I’m busy.”  
“Too busy to help me steal a pie from the kitchens?”  
The two brothers share the pie, dipping fingers in and scooping filling and crust into their mouths, laughing. It is worth the scolding they take from Frigga, because they are brothers and love each other and someday they will try to kill each other, but it is not this day.  
To this memory, Loki returns frequently, and though his eyes are closed, and he is locked away, the taste of pie rises unbidden on his tongue. He could ask for pie, in here, and be granted it (none would deny an Asgardian prince) but he doesn’t. It would choke him, and break his heart, and besides, the pies only tasted good when they were stolen with Thor.


	3. Frigga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another flashback, this time with Frigga.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't own these characters. Feel free to comment :)

Loki discovered how to clone himself at six. It was quite by accident, really. Frigga had insisted he change his play tunic for something more presentable, and Loki had wished there was a way he could double himself, and all of a sudden there were two of him, one looking at him, and he himself, frightened. He unwished very quickly and there was just him again, and his mother was looking at him with some concern on her face, but always love, and he ran to her and she held him to her chest. Perhaps Frigga knew then that she was losing her baby, but she comforted him then, and explained about magic.  
Later that night, in the privacy of their chambers, she would tell Odin about Loki’s cloning, and suggest that he be told soon of who he was. Odin would look at her, coldly, and Frigga would drop it, wishing in her heart of hearts that there was another way. Mothers never believe their sons will grow up to destroy worlds, and through Frigga knew where Loki came from, and what he was destined to do, she always believed in his goodness.  
She was the one who pushed for magic lessons, Loki knew, who encouraged him to develop his talents and skills, and when he turned sixteen, far more adept in magic than his teachers, it was she would told him how proud they were, and she who handed him his helmet and cape, those birthrights of a prince.  
She comes in every day to see him, when he’s sleeping, or slipping through his memories. When his eyes are closed she can bear the sight of her son, but when his gaze falls on her, she remembers her own role in what he’s become, and she’s ashamed.


	4. Sun-sweet Berries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki does not lack conviction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki is probably a little OOC here, but then again, we don't know what he was like as a child. So this is part of my backstory.

Loki remembers his first trip to Midgard, long ago. He was small, as was Thor, and the world was new in its creation and all things were glad and young. It was a beautiful place, what the mortals would call Earth in their tongue, all green (in fact, it is on this trip that Loki claims the color green for himself) and growing, with animals prancing unafraid. He had seen a rainbow, and the colors had marvelled him, created not by magic but by the interaction of air and water.   
“This is truly a magical land, brother,” he mumurs to Thor, and Thor, who has been to Midgard before, and who loves it no less than Loki, laughs in agreement.  
They follow rippling brook after brook, catching the fish for fun, and marvelling at their slimy smoothness before releasing them to live long fish lives in the clear waters. The air is rich and pure, filled with the scent of flowers and the humming of insects, and a breeze playfully caresses the boys’ hair and cheeks before dancing through the trees.  
The two camp that night, eating fish cooked over an open fire and huge ripe berries that dropped into their waiting palms and stained their faces, and sleeping on the soft loam. The stars are unfamiliar, but no less beautiful, and this land claims Loki. It sneaks in and grabs his heart, the tall trees and strange animals and plants, and though he does not tell Thor of this sudden love, it seems Thor understands, for he reaches over and musses Loki’s hair.  
“Speechless, for once, Silvertongue?”   
“It’s just so perfect, Thor. So unspoiled and lovely. I want it to stay this way forever.”

In the cage, sometimes, he tastes the berries and feels the stickiness on his face and hands, and when he opens his eyes he's back on Midgard for the first time, and though he knows this is madness, it is welcome.

When Loki returned to Earth, sick with the heat and poison, mad in his desires to rule, he saw the destruction of his beloved land, and he mourned. He would return the Earth to the way it was before, back to the state it was when he first laid eyes on it. It would return to the way it was, and Loki would live peacefully on it, neither monster nor god, but tender of the Earth. He would coax back the forests and the clear rivers and the darkness speckled with stars, and humanity would look upon the newmade world and repent of their sins. They would join him in rebuilding paradise, and he would be hailed as savior. When the fevers took him and the pain raced through his body, he remembered the sun and the stars, and the taste of sun-sweet berries sticky in his palm, and that eased it. For the love Loki bore towards the world that was not his own was an immense love, and Phil Coulson was wrong. 

Loki did not lack conviction.


	5. Destroyer of Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki returns, briefly, to sanity.

_In the cage, Loki stirs._

_“Brother,” Thor calls. “Are you awake?” His blue eyes, so warm, are met with the piercing green gaze of his prisoner’s, and a smirk dances on the edge of the cruel mouth._

_“As always, brother.”_

_“Can I get you anything?” Loki laughs, a harsh sound._

_“Oh, but what I want you cannot give me, can you, brother?” Thor winces. He does not want to keep Loki locked away. He misses riding with his brother, misses their little exploits and games and jokes, and as much as Loki would like to believe that Thor hates him, Thor cannot hate him. For Thor is a creature of much love, and his love for his brother is foremost among all, and so this pains him, yes, but Loki does not care. Loki wants to hurt Thor, wants to make him hurt as he does, wants to strangle him and scratch his eyes out and beat him until there’s no strength left in either of their bodies and then cry, holding his brother, until the two of them were as they once was._

_“I am sorry.” It is his humbleness that breaks Loki’s heart. Loki cannot touch what makes Thor Thor, always ready to forgive his little brother, always ready with a smile for Loki and a story, to carry Loki when he fell that one day when they were children and broke his leg, always taking care of him. “I wish,” Thor says, a whisper, more to himself than the man in the glass. “I wish I could carry it for you, brother.” Loki almost doesn’t catch this, because the memories have started to press back in and it hurts to fight them off, but he does hear it, and this is the one thing he can do for Thor, whom he followed around as a child and held mock battles with, this is what he can do, and if it’s such a heavy burden, better he should carry it, unloved and unliked. It’s breaking him, but Thor it would utterly destroy. Better for him to end the worlds than Thor, Loki thinks, because at least that way, he is better than Thor at something._

  
  



	6. Little Deer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki recounts his first lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-smutty, although it's implied.

Of all the lovers Loki’s had, and he’s had many, both male and female and beyond, the one he remembers with surprising clarity is the first. She was his chambermaid, a pretty young thing, maybe his age, but used to working. Her eyes were the soft brown of a doe’s, and her hair the color of a young fawn’s coat. In his head, he referred to her as “little deer”, enjoying the play on words that that phrase provided, and how well it seemed to fit her. She was small of stance, and fleet-footed, and at the age of consent, he had decided it was time to pursue his doe. He waited until the next great feast day, a costumed affair that involved all people, great and small, as he knew that was his greatest chance.

Loki does not quite remember her name, though it reminds him of spring.

She’d be there, dressed in his colors, he knew, because it was what girls did, choose the colors of their gentleman favorite, and how could she love anyone better than he? He, for his part, wore only a feathered mask, a plain black suit shot with green and gold, and around his neck, the silver chain that marked him as a prince. When he arrived among the revelers, he searched for her, and did not find her. There were many in his brother’s colors, many in the colors of the Warriors Three, and even a few ladies in Sif’s colors. This made Loki giggle slightly. Sif herself was absent from the festivities, claiming to hate these things, but it was love for Thor that kept her away, Loki knew, and tonight Thor would pick amongst the women here, and tomorrow Sif would only appear on the practice fields, and there would be a new punching bag strung up after she left. Loki notices these things, it is what makes him so good at understanding people, but everyone thinks he’s a liar and a trickster, so he holds his tongue (Silvertongue, they jeer at him, and it hurts. It will always hurt, he knows).

All of a sudden, he spies a lovely woman in green, hair tumbling down her bare shoulders, gown a green that could only be called his, and though the mask was made of feathers, it was the face of a doe that met his gaze. The stars seem to stand in their paths and his blood seems to boil inside of him, his ice blood is no longer ice but lava, and he thinks that if he does not have her now he will die for the wanting. She feels the same urgency, he notes, and they whirl into a dance with the revelers and the music seeps into Loki’s bones and the stars twinkle above, and eons of this cannot be that bad, a beautiful woman and good drink and music, but Loki already knows it cannot last. They drift from the crowd, just another young couple celebrating the ancient rites, and wander hand-in-hand down the paths from the revelry square into the woods, occasionally running into friends or other couples, but finally, they are alone and she pulls off her mask for the first time tonight and oh, his Little Deer is everything he could have wished for and when their faces are close enough that they’re sharing breath he whispers “beautiful, beautiful,” over and over.

When it is done, and they are spent they sleep in the clearing, wrapped in each other’s arms. What happens after that is no matter. The beauty is in those moments, that night and right until they wake, and this is what Loki dreams of in the cage. The arms of the first woman he knew, and her eyes and lips, and though he does not truly love her, it soothes him to think thus, and to forget how next festival she wore Thor’s colors, and how she bore a bastard child that looked much like his brother, because by then he had had as many lovers as he could and she was no longer important, other than they had been each other’s firsts, with clumsy hands and mouths, and Loki remembers this woman who chose him first and is pleased.


	7. Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki sees the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am killing myself with feels. And probably other people too. Comments/constructive criticism always welcome! :)

Loki’s mind, no longer bound to the here-and-now, sometimes creates a future for him, a happy one.

It always starts with him strolling down the halls of Asgard, not king, but happy, because he knows he doesn’t need to be king. He is the Prince, the foremost of magic workers, and Thor’s closest counselor, and this is enough for him. He has other ways to pass the time. Loki smiles with thoughts of his favorite distraction.

They had been married a year before, when the spring broke on the Earth and in Asgard all was renewed. Cloaked in finery, they tied their robes together, and ran under the thrown grain. As was custom, they stood on the Fertility circle with all the other newly wed couples, and they joined hands and blessed the worlds below them. As they rejoined their happy families, Loki and his bride were greeted with smiles and hugs, and great gifts aplenty.

Now though, Loki is hurrying through the halls, for a far different reason. He stops, turns, enters his chambers, but they are no longer merely his. They have a woman’s touch to them, a freshness and lightness that did not exist before and the change, suddenly noticable, stops him. He sees before him the smile of his wife, the curve of her spine, her sweet skin...

“Loki, hurry,” Thor cries out. “I’m going to be an uncle!” Loki runs into the bedroom, just in time. His mother is there, bending over his wife -still lovely in childbirth- and all of a sudden a cry fills the room and Loki’s heart swells.

“I’m a father,” he says, shocked and laughing. “I’m a father!” He runs to look at his son, and the boy is tiny and perfectly formed. “He’s beautiful, my wife. We’ll have to have another soon.” She laughs.

“Not so soon, my lord. But yes, in time.” He reaches out to take her hand, and the look they share is one so loving and full that it erases all else.

Years pass and their first boy grows up strong and handsome, dark black locks like his father, slender and quiet. He is like the night, and Loki loves his eldest son. The second son has the curly red hair of his mother, and is loud, yet loving. He reminds Loki of Thor, and Loki loves his second son just as much. They, and their mother, are Loki’s heart, and it is plain for everyone to see his adoration.

Thor, too, has a family, and often they dine together, the five or so Thunder brats and his own two offspring, and when Loki looks over the table, what he sees fills him with contentment and joy. There-the intertwined hair of the children whispering, dark locks against all of Thor’s blond children, and there-his lovely wife and Thor’s laughing, and here, his brother next to him, and laughing, and partaking of wine and story-telling.

This is the life Loki has always imagined, and this is the life he lives, in his head, when the past is overwhelming and the present non-existent. He dreams of feasting, and a wife, and children, and if in the cage he once utters a single name “Sigyn!”, he does not know.


	8. Thor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor thinks about Loki while watching him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore Thor a bit more, so this is that.

Thor watches his baby brother, and his heart breaks.

He remembers when Loki was brought home, his father bloody, with his ruined eye streaking his face. His mother screamed, and ran towards his father, but Thor was frightened and so hung back. Odin cradled a bundle in his arms, and before seeing the healers, he handed it to Thor’s mother, gently, and she cried out.

“A baby, oh, Odin, how on Asgard?”

“I found him, sweet, and I couldn’t leave him!”

“No, no, give him to me, poor child, see how he’s blue with cold?” (Odin will pull Frigga aside and explain later, he doesn't want Thor to know. The boy is young.)  She fussed over him, and then called Thor to her side. He remembers the weight of his brother as he held him for the first time, the way his face was wrinkled, but so trusting, and he remembers the way Loki curled his tiny fist around Thor’s thumb, already large for a young child, and he remembers thinking _I will always protect you, baby brother._

He snorts. He’s failed Loki in a million little ways since then, a million and one, and yet he cannot stop trying to save his brother.

Thor thinks back to when they were children. He remembers their mock battles, and their lessons together, and the day he went to the training fields, leaving four year old Loki crying for him in the arms of their nursemaids. Loki joined him soon after, and to his surprise, scrawny baby Loki was his equal in sparring, using his head rather than muscle to wear out his opponents. There was no one he’d rather have by his side in battle, than his brother, and having to fight against him?

Well, Thor couldn’t.

How could he, when every time he struck him, he heard his brother’s voice crying for him, crying “Come back, Thor, don’t leave me,” or “Thor, please, I want to go,” or “I look up to you, you know”?

Loki stirs and pulls Thor out of his reverie. His brother’s face is pulled, gaunt, hollow, and the expressions are not lively as they once were, and Thor misses those fleeting grins and smiles of his brother’s face, and he sorrows for them. When Loki’s gaze turns upon him, he meets his brother’s eyes, steadfast and solid.

Loki is his brother, always, and he will stand by that, to the end of the worlds and beyond.


	9. She Sings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki remembers his mother combing his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Loki. That being said, I fully intend to break everyone's hearts.

Loki remembers hands gently combing his hair, a pretty voice lifted in song, his mother’s warmth behind him as she pulled his hair back for him.  
“Loki, my son,” she chuckles, “your hair is as dark as night and as smooth as water. I wish I was so blessed.” Loki wonders why his mama would want hair other than hers, golden and curling high atop her head.  
“But your hair is beautiful, Mama,” he answers, and she kisses the top of his head in reply. Her son the frost giant has not grown into what she thought. Rather, he is small and slight, bones like a bird. She loves his smallness, loves him more than her other son, though she’ll never say so. Odin spoiled Thor so, and left little Loki behind, and her heart had broken for the infant she’d held years ago. Loki has sown himself into her heart in ways Thor has not, and though she loves both with a mother’s love, Loki is her favorite. She is always afraid he’ll fly away, because she knows he’ll be angry when he finds out. That’s how Loki is, all anger and broodiness when things don’t suit him, and she wants to tell him now, because he deserves to know, but Odin has forbidden it. Even Frigga does not dare to cross him.   
Loki is oblivious to all of Frigga’s thoughts.   
“Mama, when I grow up, I want to marry someone as pretty as you. Do you think I will?” She smooths his hair down once more. He is so sweet, so full of love, and Frigga wonders at Odin's inability to see this.  
“Of course you will, my darling. Now, run and find Thor, I have a surprise for you two!” Loki squeals and races to find his brother. The two tromp in quickly, and Frigga gives them both toy horses.  
Of course, they played for hours with them, and broke things, and got in trouble, but Loki even now can remember the song she sang while combing his hair and the gentleness of her hand on his head, and it opens in him a wound, for even though she knew what he would become, she still loved him. Her eyes when he was brought home in chains burned him, and her hug. He was not worthy of being her son, no matter what she said, and in that regard he was grateful he wasn’t her son. At least she had a son to be proud of. Let Thor bring her glory.

Of the few regrets Loki has, letting down the woman who raised him is one of the biggest.


	10. The All-Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin on Loki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Odin won't visit Loki.

Odin has not gone to visit Loki even once. He cannot. Thor pleads almost daily with him, yet Odin will not go. _Cannot go_ , a nasty voice whispers to him. _You’re afraid to see him like that, afraid you’re completely responsible, afraid your son will never forgive you, and you’re right._ Odin walks the halls at night, and not even Frigga’s begging him to come to bed brings him. He sleeps only when he feels like he must, for when he does sleep, he hears Loki’s voice crying out to him.

He sees five year old Loki, tiny and grim, trying to be just like Thor, looking for his approval, fourteen year old Loki asking about his true parents, and twenty-three year old Loki looking for permission to wed and he hears himself answer back, always, “Loki, no,” and it hurts more than losing his damn eye did, and for no better reason. Odin wakes after these dreams with clenched fists, and the circlets of his nails don’t fade out of his palms for hours after

. It is not that he regrets grabbing the boy, oh, no, he has never regretted that, not for a moment. Nor does he regret the look on his eldest’s face as he held the tiny Joten baby, nor the feeling when Loki babbled “Dada” for the first time and held his arms to him. He doesn’t regret training Loki in magic, or fighting, or giving him toys and candies, and watching his face light up when something grabs his interest.

The things he regrets are long, but they are not these things. He knows he should have told the boy long ago who he was, but he could not. How could he, when Thor loved to hear the story about driving back the Frost Giants and Loki always asked about how many he’d killed. What was he supposed to say? _I murdered your parents, and I enjoyed it, I raised my sons on those stories?_ No. So he let it go, for far too long. He is sorry for that, very sorry, which is why he refuses to visit Loki. Thor does not yet understand, big lovable brute that he is, and Odin smiles at him when he rebuffs his offers to escort his father.

No, to lay eyes on Loki would be to step on his own heart, and Odin knows better than this.


	11. Here and Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki feels. And Frigga feels.

“Hello brother,” Thor greets Loki. “Awake again, I see?”  
“Your observational powers are astute, brother. Tell me, has Mother been in today?  
“You know that she has.”  
“She cannot bear to look at me,” Loki remarks casually. “I expect it’s because she realizes her son is a monster.”   
“She does not think you a monster. She loves you, Loki. We all love you.”  
And this is what Loki cannot stand about Thor, that damned new calmness, that steadfast ability to be gentle, the understanding, and so Loki does what he does best; he lashes out.  
“Well, now, brother, I am adopted, as you put it, and I am not their son. Father hasn’t even come to see me yet, did you know that? Mother comes when I pretend to be asleep. They think I’m a beast, Thor! LOOK AT ME. I’M NO PRINCE. I’M A MONSTER.”  
Thor puts his hand to the glass.  
“Brother,” he rumbles.  
“Just leave me alone, brother dearest. I think I’d like a nap.” Thor nods.  
Loki watches him leave, and the cage bores (annoys, tires, makes him go mad, oh so crazy) him, so he switches forms. Look at me, he thinks. I turn blue and I leave frost wherever I touch and if I were to stroke anyone, even someone I loved, I’d kill them. Who could love someone who could kill them?  
“You’re beautiful like that,” remarked his mother’s voice. “You’re my baby, Loki, always my son, no matter what your hair color may be.”  
Loki looks up, and his mother is standing there, hands pressed against the glass, eyes shining. He reaches for her, presses his hand against hers, and looks to meet her eyes.

Frigga is standing with Thor, watching her son reach towards the glass.   
“Mother,” he cries out, and her heart breaks.He presses his hand against the glass, looking at someone that isn’t there, looking for her, but she can’t run to him, no, not now.   
“What is he doing, Thor, what is he doing, why is he doing that?” She reaches for her eldest son and wraps her arms around the blond man and he puts his arm around her in return.  
“He’s gone mad, Mother,” was his only answer. “The cage has pushed his mind too far. It is painful to see him like this.”  
“My baby,” she moans, and Thor is struck by the sudden realization that no matter how much his mother loves him, she loves Loki more.


	12. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick update
> 
> may expand, may not

Loki fell in love with a mortal man once, a man lean and long, with dark hair that fell into his eyes and a smile that burned Loki's heart, and Loki would every day return to Earth to watch him.  
Thor tried to warn him.  
"Brother, do not. It will only bring misery."

Loki could not listen. The fire sang through his veins, and he knew he had to have this man.

He took on his womanly form, and met the man on a deserted road, and went to live with him.

Loki lived an entire life there, and the man grew old and died.

 

When Loki returned to Asgard, Thor tried to comfort him, but Loki would not be comforted.

 

Just now, Thor thinks, Loki looks the same. Lost and hurt.

Loki's eyes open.

"To love a human is to invite pain, brother," and Thor thinks of Jane and is saddened.   
"Yes, Loki. I know."


End file.
